A torturously funny film that is amazingly accurate in its portrayal of life in a Mormon town. Most of the smaller towns in the Rocky-mountian west are predominantly Mormon.

Although it doesn't say it in the movie, Napoleon is a Mormon kid.
The clues are everywhere. His "Ricks College" t-shirt is a dead give away. Ricks College is a Mormon school, (now called BYU Idaho). The second-hand store where Napoleon shops is one store in a whole chain of stores scattered throughout Utah, Idaho, Arizona and Nevada called "Deseret Industries", (pronounced Des..err...et) or "DI" for short, and is owned and operated by the Mormon Church.

Napoleon talks about scout camp. The Boy Scout program is almost single-handedly run by the Mormon (LDS) Church in the west, and is a very significant part of their development program for boys. The director and his co-writer wife are Mormon, so is the actor who plays Napoleon. Most of the cast/crew are from Brigham Young University, (BYU)and most of the cool words that Napoleon uses like flip and gosh have been used by Mormon kids for decades.

Even the liger has roots in growing up in the Mormon west...the liger was a real half-lion half-tiger that actually lived for many years at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, and is well known to legions of Mormon kids who went to Hogle Zoo on field trips. After it died it was stuffed and mounted and is still on display at the zoo.

Though no-fault of the director, (the film is loosely based on his life in Preston) much of the deeply subtle humor in the movie is only caught by those familiar with Mormon culture. Napoleons clothes and the furniture in his house for instance, are all "total DI".

All in all, a "funny as heck" movie that can be enjoyed by all and is well worth seeing whoever and whatever you are.

"Fetch! Napoleon Dynamite is one saaweeet flick. I can't wait till my older brother gets home from his mission to see it...he's gonna laugh his flippin' head off."

1. Napoleon Dynamite was so fucking funny! Remember the part where the guy said "your mom goes to college?"
2. Napoleon Dynamite was okay. I mean, I didn't hate it or anything.
3. "Your mom goes to college?" What the fuck does that mean?

The Urban Dictionary T-Shirt

a movie that was actually good before all of the trend following whiney teens and pre-teens started misquoting it. even though they said it sucked when it came out in theaters, they still seem to have the need to watch it 4 billion times and STILL misquote it every 5 minutes. this movie also fell prey to hot topic even though it doesnt really keep in with their emo loserness theme.

The Urban Dictionary T-Shirt

(proper noun) A "nerdy-type" guy from Idaho who does not care about what anyone thinks of him and just does what he enjoys. Interests include: drawing pictures of fairy-tale creatures and the like, tetherball, throwing oranges at passing cars. Also stars in his own movie called, obviously, "Napoleon Dynamite" which was flipping SWEET!! People who are against this movie because it's "stupid" and "pointless" need to chill because that's just it... you have to appreciate the mindlessness!

The Urban Dictionary T-Shirt

1. A movie that gained popular acclaim via cognitive dissonance. True to form, there is nothing funny about the movie. But when people pay money to go see and sit through the entire movie, their brain tries to rationalize the situation (especially when you go watch a stupid movie.) In the end, the individual will convince him/herself that the movie was good.

2. A movie that has been quoted by the vast pre-teen adolescent population way to many times.

1. That was the greatest movie ever. I mean, I paid money to go see it and I sat through the entire thing, so it must have been good.

The Urban Dictionary T-Shirt

A pretty funny movie if you watched it when it came out and before EVERY FAGGOT IN THE WORLD started using phrases from it like "GOSH" and "FLIPPIN SWEET" and shit like that.
This movie got played out like hell...everyone ruined its funnyness by over using lines from it.

"GOSH did you see that FLIPPIN SWEET movie NAPOLOEN DYNAMITE. GOSH it's so FLIPPIN SWEET. VOTE FOR PEDRO!!!"

a movie that some people hate just because a lot of buttholes quote it all the time and just because it's popular. hating napoleon dynamite just because a lot of other people like it is a bad reason to hate it. it's like hating peanut butter or jelly just because it's popular.

i watched napoleon dynamite and thought it was funny and a good movie overall. if you don't like my opinion, tough luck.